BREAKING THE CHAINS THAT BIND YOU

And even though it's a bombshell for me, it's of little importance to you, but at least I can now talk about it.

Ready?

Today, I will be officially quitting my job as a writer.

It seems almost crazy. I've got a bunch of you that read me that would KILL to be a professional writer. To actually get PAID to write books that sit on the shelves of bookstores.

You know...if the company that you work for has a marketing department that makes sure that those books get put on bookstore shelves.

Which my former company did not have.

But I'm going to save my bitching about the company for another day. Not today.

Have you noticed that I have not spoken about my job here in almost two years?

I might talk about the snack machine at work. Or the people that work in different businesses in the same building.

But I very rarely touched on my actual work.

That's because a good quarter of the people that I worked with were reading this diary (supposedly) behind my back and were waiting for me to rail about work.

It didn't happen, did it kids?

Uncle Bob kept his big trap shut, didn't he?

I walked past the receptionist's desk one day, and SHE was reading this page right there in front of God and everyone.

And they all knew it was me.

And none of them said anything about it.

To me, that's kind of sneaky.

But I knew they were reading it. A few of them were stone cold busted reading it.

So for almost two years, I had to keep my mouth shut about that place.

Not anymore.

But not today.

Today is for rejoicing.

I will tell you why I left the company.

Basically, they ran out of money.

The company is still alive, but only by a thread.

Everyone that would at least talk to me there is looking for another job.

The snotwads that thought they were too damned good to talk to me or say hello to me in the hallways or acknowledge my presence when standing next to them at the sink in the men's room ... I hear they're looking for other jobs too.

We were supposed to be paid this past Tuesday.

At 4 p.m., the payroll lady walked from office to office to tell everyone that we wouldn't be getting paid that day.

This was the second time it's happened out of the last three pay periods.

Luckily for me, I went on a job interview last week that felt really promising.

And I had a back-up plan to go back to a previous job that I absolutely hated. But I loved the new boss there (an old friend of mine) and quite a few of the people there. So it'd be like putting on a pair of old comfortable pants that were covered in maggots. I could do it, but it wouldn't be pleasant.

So when the payroll lady told me this, I asked her to close the door to my office and then I grilled her for 10 minutes straight.

I have recently gotten good at speaking my mind and damning the consequences.

I told her that this was highly unprofessional for them to not tell us ahead of time that we wouldn't be getting paid until 4 p.m. on payday.

She said that she didn't know.

I said "You can't tell me that you didn't know 24 hours ago that we didn't have the money in the bank to cover payroll."

And she couldn't.

I explained that I understand the sensitivity in payroll and that there could be massive mutiny if she were to have told us the day before payday that we would not only not be getting paid, but that she didn't know WHEN or IF we would be getting paid.

I explained that she was not only fucking with the 25 lives in the building, but also the photographers and printing companies and countless other individuals that depended on money from this place.

At one point, her eyes were full of tears as I kept admonishing her.

And when I saw that, I basically stopped. The last thing I wanted was for her to start bawling in my office.

Then again, this woman NEVER took the time to learn my f'n name in the almost two years that I was there.

We had 20-25 people working in that office. Not a big office by any means.

I knew everyone else's names.

But one of the last times I went in to her office to ask her a question about my payroll, just a few months ago, she had to ask me what my name was.

I really felt like going out to the lobby, grabbing one of the 10 or so books I had written, opening it up to the back flap on the book jacket, pointing to my picture with my name next to it and saying "Right there, honey. UNCLE FUCKING BOB. I'm the guy that writes this horseshit on a daily basis. I'm one of the few people in this building whose name is actually embedded in the spine of these shitty assed books. Forgive my ego here, but it's high time you learned who in the fuck I am."

But...you know...I just sheepishly told her my name again and she looked up whatever I needed looked up.

So I didn't really feel bad when I made her cry.

I cleaned out my office gradually this week.

When I found out Tuesday that we weren't getting paid, I removed all the pictures off the walls and took them to my car.

On Wednesday, I cleaned out my desk, filling up a box with all of my personal belongings.

Wednesday afternoon, I got a call to come down for a second interview with my new job.

During that call, I explained that I didn't want to come off as too desperate, but I wanted to ask a quick couple of questions.

The lady said sure.

I asked what were the chances of me actually getting the job at this point. She said they were really good.

I then asked if they would frown upon me not giving my current employer two weeks notice. Normally I wouldn't do that, but there were extinuating circumstances and I thought it would be in everyone's best interests, both me and my former company, to leave immediately.

She said that'd be great, because they needed me down there yesterday.

So yesterday, I called in sick and went down to my final job interview with the president of the company.

And I did horrible.

HORRIBLE.

He asked me the question "What can you bring to our company?"

I had been practicing the answer all week.

And when it came time, I went blank.

Blanker than Mariah Carey's brain.

Blank I'm tellin' ya.

"Uhhhhh...I'm funny," I said.

He bristled.

"And I get along with everyone," I drawled.

He sat stiffly.

"Did I mention I'm funny?" I said, hoping for a laugh.

Nothing.

IT WENT HORRIBLE.

Granted, I have not been on an official job interview that was this important in 20 years. Every job I've had in the last 20 years, they were either already interested in me and the job was mine, or I knew the boss and I was a shoo-in.

This time, I knew someone in the company who had referred me.

Luckily ... that person is the coolest person on earth.

Someone you longtime readers of this diary should remember.

Yep.

My evil ex-boss Wendigo.

Who...as of yesterday ... is now my current evil boss Wendigo.

I'm not sure she's my boss, really. She's above me. I'll answer to her to an extent. But it's kind of a gray area right now.

So anyway,there you go.

I've now got the coolest job in the city.

And I can start talking smack about my former job after a two year silence.

Life is good.

Oh.

You want to know what I'll be doing now?

Gosh.

If I were you ... I'd come back on Monday for the full scoop.

Because this is what they call in Soap Opera Land ... a cliffhanger.

Have a good weekend!

(My apologies if this didn't make a lot of sense. I was emailing my sister while trying to write this and telling her a lot of the same stuff, so this wasn't an entry that I was entirely focused on.)